Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-04-30
HETl
A Romance of the Bush.


| was on some Government duty last
year in New South Wales, that took me
into the local Postotfices. In the back par
Tor, at the Gundaroo Postoffice l had a
long chat with the son of the Postmistress
fine young fellow, perhaps little over
thirty. He was manager to local sheep
king, and rejoiced ir the curious Christian
name of Het. The following is his account
of the circumstances that led TO his being
so named:
| was there certainly; but l don't re-
member much about it. I was told. / can
vouch for the truth of it, for she and him,
too, often and often have told it to me, and
others. They've told it apart, each by their
TWO selves, and they often tell it together
she telling about him, making him out to
have been the hero, and he telling it all SO
that she was the hero-heroine, | should
say. But | expect each of 'em always told
it in about the same words. You see it
was an epoch like, and sort of fixed itself
in their memories-and what happened
after, fixed ii tirmer yet.
L
bind here eight years and | was f" boy -
here pointing with his pipestem to the
floor eight years at school here in Gun
daroo till 1 was II; so | suppose it must
have been 81 years ago-near enough.
The colony wasn't settled near so much
as it is now. the coach from Sydney didn t
reach Gundaroo not by three days ride,
and the mails were carried on horseback,
once week, the rest of the way. After
the coach road, for bit-say twenty miles
the track was good enough, and there
were stations further than that; but by the
end OF the first days ride you reached the
last house or hut you were TO see till you
sighted Gundaroo.
The first night the mail carrier put up at
"Paddys Shanty," sort of an inn on the
track. The next morning he started-all
alone, mind y0u with valuable mail bags
across as nasty piece OF bush as you Ii
find in Australia, and | suppose that says
in the world. 1t was all ti-tree scrub. If
you know what that is you'll understand.
Never seen any? Oh, well, it's scrub, that
is all, little trees with their leaves all on
the top. All of EN- alike. Just too slender
and weak to bear mans climbing up one
TO look round too far apart for you to
swarm up two at once, arms and legs, you
know; and vet too close for you to see sun
or stars, night or day. That sort of scrub
is the cruelest of all. If you know your
way, well and good but if you once
get wrong, Lord help you. You're
pushed, as sure as you're alive.
Unless you chance on a track or come
across camp, you may lie down and give
1t up. As long as your water barrl holds
out SOIL you. After that you may give
yourself day or two to die in perhaps
another two days, if you're tough sort.
Your bones III be there years after. Well
that's what he had to ride through for
hours and hours the second day, and at
night he ought to be about through it, if he
KEEP the track and made out to reach the
open again. Then the track was across a
fern gully, with creek at the bottom, and
there he camped for the night. Then he
had an eighty-mile ride the next day
straight through the blue-gum forest into
Gundaroo.
The chap that rode with the mails then
was splendid fellow. Standard his name
was. Too heavy p'raps for a postman, as
we understand EN-, but just the man roI
that work in those days. 1t wanted fel.
| low full of pluck, as'strong as horse, and
with all his wits about him. Besides the
dangers of the track, and creeks to ford
| and the heat, and the snakes at night, there
| was the Loneliness. That one fellow, all
alone in that great wild district, riding
| through the hours in the perfect stiffness
under the sky. No chance of seeing soul,
and probably not wanting to neither, as
things was then. If any one did Just hap
pen to come across the mail carriers in
those DAYS, ii wasn't generally for no good.
He used to say When mans got her
Majesty's precious mail bags, with her own
red seals on 'em, in front of the saddle
and only the usual number of hands for
pistols, and reins. and all, he don't care
much if he don't see no one all the ride
| through" He wasn't one to boast, wasn't
Standard; but he had once to defend the
mails, with three to one against him, and
| tried for manslaughter, too, for the way he
| done it, and acquitted and carried out OF
the Court on the chaps shoulders. They
| tell that tale still here in Gundaroo.
The time I'm telling you of was in the
hot season. The ground was all cracked
and dry. There hadn't been a drop OF rain
| for months and months, and lots of the
| creeks were empty. At Gundaroo it had
| been very bad, and the district round was
| terrible in want of water.
On the Saturday after New Years Day
when Standard left Paddys Shanty, il
was hot wind. awful to ride in. They
| ia ught rain was coming, though.
| The boss at the shanty told Standard as
! ne fixed up his water barr'l behind him on
| The saddle, that a stoTekeeper and his wife
and child, and his chum, had started the
day before for n station where they'd got a
berth. They had to follow the Gundaroo
| track q bit, and then strike across the bush
to the station. " 1t isn't far they've to go, -
he said, " but they're new chums, and the
woman looked n bit delicate as well as
having a young baby to carry"
They've only two horses then says
Standard, looking along the track, unless
the third horse few"
NO" says the boss 1.-The woman rode
behind one of the men, turn and turn
about. A fine young woman she was, too. y
at is to be hoped the chaps hadn't
much else to carry, then" says Standard.
=" couldn't carry another couple OF
pounds-let alone a woman and babylon
Lady, without knocking her up
We'll, you amt got to" says the boss
and laughs as he watches Standard put
Lady into a steady canter along the
track, where the two sets of hoof marks
showed in the sand.
Lady was a fine black mare. Very
swift, but just thought too light for
Standard and the bags, some said. He
wouldn't allow it. He said she reaches
OO iicSu a. iccQ NC Ou hOuudN
night, and by the time she has to start on
Thursday she's wild to be on the road"
He only travelled once fortnight on her.
The other week he rode a roam, bigger
brute, but not half so sensible and kind
like as Lady. She was a born lady.
Standard used to say. Her mother was
Duchess, whereas the roam was the son
of Milkmaid. although he was called
Emperor She could have gone the whole
way alone, if need be, he said she was so
trustworthy.
Well, he used TO tell it how he rode
| through that Saturday in the ti-tree scrub,
| thinking of the party in front in whose
tracks he was galloping. 1t was just near
the end of the scrub. he noticed. where
| they had left of, and started on a scarcely
visible track TO the station away TO the left,
| fifty miles or so.
| He used TO say he must have ridden a
couple of hours, perhaps. when he saw
something on the track like dead perzon
or horse. He had his hand on his pistol as
he trotted up to it, he said, thinking of the
mails. when he saw it wasn't horse or a
man, but tall slip of a young woman,
dead or perhaps only dying, laid on the
ground with her back propped against a
tree. and poor little baby clinging to her
breast.
Lord of all - muttered Standard, as be
jumped off Lady's hack and stood over the
woman. He raised her as tenderly almost
nc she wonld have done her own child